Late last night while doing a suicide watch all alone in the hole, I sat there thinking that if I had some GoPros, then I could produce one hell of a reality show just by filming the unique characters incarcerated here in the prison with me in my unit. Then my next thought was that if I couldn’t film it, then I should write about some of the everyday living that goes on in here. You know, that basic shit that seems normal to us (or maybe not) but may seem odd, or strange, to you.
So, with that in mind, I’m going to start randomly describing little snippets of daily prison life in my unit.
I’ll start with something that happened yesterday. A tall, older skinny dude by the name of Ron, who works in the prison chow hall (think Mr. Burns from The Simpsons), stops about ten feet from the penny poker table I’m sitting at catching a few hands. He signals with his fidgety eyes that he needs to see me in private. Now, normally, this wouldn’t be considered unusual. I run a prison “store,” so I have plenty of customers who don’t like people to know their business, so I assume he wants to borrow some money.
I follow him to the bathroom at the end of the hall, and the entire way he’s scanning the area around us as if something’s about to go down. This makes me nervous. I start to wonder if this fucker is setting me up. But, to my relief (and his continuing good health), he turns to me in the bathroom and pulls five or six plastic sandwich baggies wrapped with a rubber band from his crotch (where he’d hidden them, which is common for prison smugglers). He hands them over.
“What the fuck is this?” I ask.
His dark eyes go round and he takes a step back. “About a month ago you told me you needed sandwich baggies, remember?” he replies all shifty and dope-fiend-like. “Well, there they are.”
You see, one of my hustles (and I have several) is selling these little candy packs. I buy all the various hard candies sold in our commissary, then I break them all open and repackage them into smaller, more affordable packs with nine candies in each. I then sell these packs for around a dollar, mostly on credit, and I make about thirty cents per pack. I sell around 120 packs a month, earning about $36. I know, that’s not much, but it’s only one of my hustles and look at it this way, the average convict’s wages are only $8 a month, so that one hustle puts me way ahead of the game. And all my hustles are legit too. I do nothing illegal.
Anyways, I look Ron in the eye and chuckle. “What the fuck am I going to do with only five or six baggies?”
Ron throws his arms into the air. “Fuck, Pimphammer.” (My sometimes prison nickname, remember when I told you the story how I hammered a pimp’s head flat when he tried to kill–and possibly rape–me? Yep, still called Pimphammer to this day for that.) “I’m doing my best here. You were supposed to hook me up with someone in the kitchen to supply me with shit to sell. I’m trying man, I really am.”
Ron likes to drink coffee, which I also sell cups of for fifty cents, and he has no family, which means he’s always broke, so I look out for him and let him run a tab that he never pays. He tries, though.
I lay a hand on Ron’s shoulder. “Look, man, I’ve told you a million times, don’t sweat that shit.” Ron’s eyes once again get to flitting to and fro, looking everywhere but at me. He gulps. It’s his nature to be untrusting. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m fucking sure. I’ll send someone to holler at you, I promise. We’ll get you a hustle yet, you’ll see.”
Ron bobs his head. “Okay. Okay.” We start to walk out, but he stops and looks over at me. “Um, Pimphammer, uh, can I, um, maybe, um, get a cup of coffee?”
I laugh, knowing this was where poor, crazy Ron was headed the entire time. “Sure, Ron. Go get your cup.”
Woody (official name Willard, think a Hills Have Eyes villain crossed with a 65-year-old, balding, and white version of one of those 1980s starving Ethiopian kids with distended bellies, the ones from those adopt-a-kid commercials) walks up to my cell and knocks on the door, which stands open.
“What’s up?” I ask from my desk.
“I have bad news.”
Now, Woody has been one of my store customers for several years, so I know what’s coming (or at least I think I do). The following day is commissary day, so guys like Woody (the delinquent payers) all come to see me the day before commissary arrives to give me some bullshit sob story. Over the years, Woody’s aunt (yes, the same one) has died at least seven or eight times. His mom has passed two or three. His dad, his son, and several fictitious relatives have all passed tragically the day before Woody’s payment to me was due. So, I brace myself for whatever bullshit he’s going to spew, then prepare my counterargument.
“Well, um, have you been watching the news?” Woody asks.
“Maybe,” I say, trying to figure out where the fuck he’s headed. This is an entirely new tactic, and I find myself intrigued. As a writer of fiction, I always appreciate a good story, even ones that are about to fuck me. “Why?”
“Did you see that FedEx plane that went down?”
Okay, now I get it, Woody’s going to tell me his aunt was the pilot. I nod, and fight back a grin. “Sure, in Pennsylvania, I think.”
Again he nods, then tucks his thick, coke-bottle-lensed glasses back up the bridge of his nose as he mentally prepares himself for the money shot. “Yep, that’s the one. I have bad news. You see, my sister, well, she really wanted to make sure you got your money on time this time, so, well, she sent it to me special delivery like through FedEx. And the company, well, they called her and told her the check was on that plane, so she’s going to have to go to the post office and order up another money order.”
I bust out laughing, harder than I have in a long time. Woody (and others) have told me some whoppers over the years, but this one takes the fucking cake. So much so that, even now, years later, people still spin this tale. “But, Woody, didn’t the plane just crash? How the fuck was FedEx able to ascertain so quickly that your sister’s envelope was aboard?” I say, wondering how far he’ll try to take the ruse.
“Hey, Jerry, I’m not lying. Promise. Want to call her, my sis?”
Again, I laugh. Under most circumstances I’d tell Woody not to worry about it, that it’s not necessary for me to talk to his family over fifty or sixty dollars. Only, this time, I say, “Okay, let’s go.”
We get to the phone and he picks it up to dial. “No,” I say, “I’ll dial. And don’t give me the wrong fucking number, either. This was your stupid-ass suggestion.”
Woody gives me the number, and as I’m dialing it, he’s fidgeting and shit. The phone rings, and rings, and rings, and Woody starts to build confidence. He’s now standing straighter, with a smirk decorating his bearded Hills-Have-Eyes face. Only, right before I’m about to hang up, his sister answers.
“Hello?”
“Hi, um, is this Willard’s sister?”
“Who’s this?”
“I’m his friend Jerry. And he’s right here next to me. We have a question you might be able to answer for us.”
“Woody’s there with you?” Her voice is hesitant.
“Yep.” I hold the phone out so Woody can say a few words.
“It’s about the plane that crashed with….”
I cover the receiver with my hand and chuckle. “Good try,” I tell him. Then to his sister: “Hi, it’s me again.”
“What’d he say about a plane, is everything okay?”
“Yeah, things are fine. We just needed to know if FedEX called you this morning, and what they said.”
“FedEx?”
“Yeah, Woody said you sent some money FedEx, but FedEx called and said there’s a problem.”
“Money, that’s what this is fucking about?” Woody’s sister growls. “Tell that motherfucker he better start sucking dicks, ’cause I’m not sending him shit. He still owes me from the last three times I sent money, and NOT through FedEx.”
The phone goes dead.
I look to Woody. “Well?”
His head droops. “Sorry.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me one of your normal bullshit stories, like your aunt died or some shit?”
Woody shrugs. “I thought I’d try something new.”
I shake my head and laugh. “Fucker. You better go find my money.”
Woody’s one of my buddies, and to this day he takes advantage of my kindness. Just yesterday he sold me his banana from the dinner tray, but on the way back from the chow hall it “must have fallen out of his pocket.” Well, that, or “one if these rotten fucking thieves might have pickpocketed me, Jerry. I sweat it!”
Jerry Metcalf is serving 40 years in Michigan for second-degree murder.
